


It Was Complicated

by Spidew



Series: No One's  Straight Here in LazyTown [2]
Category: LazyTown
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 17:19:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9082027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spidew/pseuds/Spidew
Summary: "So... how many boyfriends had you had?"Someone on tumblr requested I write about the past relationships I implied Robbie had in There's No Way! This is extremely headcanon and OC heavy and has very little to do with LazyTown proper





	

“So…” Trixie said while Robbie gently painted her nails. “How many boyfriends have you had?”

Robbie grinned. “Why do _you_ care?”

“I was just curious. Nobody ever like, gets to actually talk to you much.” Trixie replied, staring down at the nails he just went over.

Robbie thought about it for a moment. The boyfriends he had. He hadn’t actually counted up the number before, it didn’t really matter to him. He supposed it couldn’t hurt to tally it up.

Though he didn’t realize at first, the first boyfriend he had ever had was a young man called Jean. They had met as young children, introduced to each other by their parents. It was to be an arranged marriage. The child of the most influential family in LazyTown and the child of the richest family in LazyTown. A match made in heaven. “This is Marjorie. I expect you to get along well with her Robbie. She will be your bride some day.” Those are the words that his father said when they first met. It was funny to think about now, nearly every single word in those sentences were wrong.

“Hi Robbie! Now that we’re both fifteen my parents have been hinting that we should start officially being a couple. I know that usually the boy asks out the girl but I’ve never been one for traditions. So what do you say, shall we make it official?” Jean asked Robbie all those years ago. Robbie knew that dating him was inevitable, but he had put off asking him out. To him they felt like best friends, nothing more. But Robbie did what his parents always wanted them to so him and Jean officially started dating.

“Marjorie, are you okay?” Robbie had asked Jean. The two had been dating for over three years now. Though to him it had always felt more like simply a new title than a change in relationship. “I heard your mother yelling.”

Jean shook his head. “She’s mad that I cut my hair. Said I’ll ruin the wedding.”

Robbie ran his hand through his hair. “I like it short.”

“Thanks.” Jean said with a smile. “But I should go now. She has more dresses for me to try on.”

That was the last time Robbie ever saw him. He was berated on both sides for his disappearance. Jean’s father called him a ‘terrible influence’ and that ‘he should have never trusted a Rotten’. Robbie’s mother simply called the whole event a ‘disappointment’ and ‘a shame that he wasted so much time on a floozy’.

One year later Robbie received an envelope that read ‘From your Lover formerly known as Marjorie.’ In the letter he explained that he had realized that he was trans and had to run away. He wished Robbie the best of luck and said that he deserves someone better than him. Finally, he signed the letter, ‘With love, Jean’. For the first time since they had met, Robbie regretted not taking their relationship more seriously.

Robbie was now officially no longer attached to his parents, and had travelled out of town for college. He hadn’t given dating much thought after that, in fact he had practically given up on it entirely at this point. So when every night he began to study with a man named Heinz, he just thought it was innocent.

Eventually Heinz started becoming more and more flirtatious. Robbie was thoroughly confused and confronted him about it. Heinz apologized to him and confessed that he thought Robbie was gay. Robbie wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

Robbie decided to date Heinz. It was a lot of fun for the time, looking back on it. Through this relationship Robbie did come to realize he was in fact gay. Him and Heinz got along well for a couple of months. Heinz had even encouraged him to start creating and inventing more, a habit that Robbie had been taught by his parents to grow out of. Eventually though, all good things must come to an end. Despite how happy Robbie was, he never really learned the social skills required in a relationship.

“I don’t _care_ if it’s a joke Robbie! Every little snide comment you make, every little insult or put down, it hurts, okay? I’m sick of it!” Heinz had come to talk to him in his dorm. Robbie was silent. He had never thought he was hurting someone, that was just how he talked, it was natural for him. In that moment, Robbie was scared. He didn’t think he could change himself, he thought that he was going to be a miserable jerk who insults his loved ones for the rest of his life.

“Then maybe we should see other people.” was the only thing Robbie could manage to say. Thinking back on it, he wishes he had tried a little harder.

After Robbie finished college he moved back home to LazyTown. This time things were different. It wasn’t a prison that it had felt like in his youth, but an opportunity. He built his reputation, he built his lair, and he built himself a town he could call home. Though it wasn’t the way his parents had wanted it to go, he was finally somebody. And being somebody can attract you a lot of attention.

“Mr. Rotten, I presume? I’ve heard a lot about you.” That was the first time he heard the voice of his third boyfriend, Brody.

Robbie should have knew better. He should have taken one look at him, from his tone, his posture, the look on his face, and ran far, far away. But man oh man it had been years, and boy was he desperate. “Please, call me Robbie.”

Brody had just moved into town and within weeks had managed to easily charm Robbie into a relationship. He was perfect at first. He was caring, attentive, supportive, everything Robbie could have possibly hoped for. He taught Robbie how to ballroom dance, how to perfect his makeup, how to feel like he could do anything he could imagine. That was of course, at first.

“Is this really all you plan to do Robert? Just let everyone in LazyTown be lazy?”  Brody had asked them one day down in his lair.

Robbie chuckled uncomfortably. No matter how many times he corrected him, Brody insisted on calling him Robert. He figured that Brody must have considered it a cute pet name or something, but it just reminded Robbie of being talked down to by his parents. “Why, does that bother you?”

Brody brought his face unnervingly close to Robbie’s. “I just want what's best for you and this town Robert. You have great potential here. Are you really happy constantly wasting your time?” He remembers feeling his breath on his neck. “I mean, you don’t want to be a disappointment, do you?”

This continued for a while. Robbie didn’t mind at first, he figured this was just how Brody was, just like how Robbie was a bitter person who occasionally made rude comments. But soon each little dig dug a little deeper. Like a frog being boiled alive, Robbie didn’t realize how bad it was until the insults he would constantly tell himself actually felt kinder in comparison.

“I don’t understand why you’re upset. I’m trying to help. You should be grateful. After all, you’d be a mess without me. If I wasn’t here you’d be a sad, pathetic excuse for a man, rotting away in his cold dark lair. So I would appreciate a little gratitude.” Brody said in his calm, even voice that he always had.

Usually Robbie would agree to what he said. He thought he deserved it. But for some reason on that day, something inside him snapped. It might had been because the kids in town had been particularly nice to him that morning, or maybe it was because he realized how broken he had looked when he saw his face in the mirror. For whatever reason, Robbie decided he wasn’t putting up with this anymore.

“No, you’re right on a lot of things Brody, but not on this! I was doing just fine before you got here, and I would be just fine without you!” Robbie yelled back at him. The next sensation he felt was the back of Brody’s hand striking him across the cheek. “Get out of my town.” He said blankly.

Brody laughed. “Oh, so now it’s _your_ town?”

“Get out. Of my town.” Robbie hissed.

“Fine, have it your way. Just don’t expect me to sympathize with you after you run this dump into the ground.” Brody said. The following day he had moved out, never to be seen again. It had been eight years since that day.

“Three.” Robbie said back in present day to Trixie. Three boyfriends. That sounded about right. Jean, Heinz, and Brody. But wait, there was also Wendell wasn’t there?

Robbie had met Wendell back in college. There was a donut shop he loved to go to that Wendell worked at. After his breakup with Heinz, he had found himself going there a lot, often chatting with Wendell. They were just friends really, nothing more. He did only see him a few times a week after all.

For some reason even after moving back to LazyTown Robbie found himself traveling all the way back to that donut shop from time to time. He swore to himself it was because they had better donuts than in LazyTown. It probably had nothing to do with the fact that what he had really been craving was the kind look in Wendell’s eyes. His gentle smile. How he so obviously blushed whenever Robbie walked in, the way he would write Robbie’s name with a heart dotting the eye on his coffee cup. No, Robbie just liked the donuts there, nothing more.

Once Robbie met Brody he stopped visiting. Brody had convinced him it was a waste of time and he was clinging to the past. So once Brody left for good, Robbie found himself back inside for the first time in almost two years.

“Robbie!” Wendell ran up to him as soon as he walked in the doors. He stopped and looked at Robbie apprehensively. Robbie, feeling so starved for someone's actual positive attention pulled Wendell into a tight hug right then and there. Wendell hugged him right back.

“Sorry I’ve been gone for so long.” Robbie said under his breath.

Wendell chuckled. “It wasn’t too long. I still remember your usual.”

That night Wendell asked Robbie out on a date to the aquarium. He said his biggest regret was not asking him out sooner. Robbie couldn’t have agreed more. They shared their first kiss in front of a tank filled with seahorses.

“Sometimes I feel like a fish in an aquarium.” Wendell said idly as they strolled through the aquarium, hand in hand.

“Yeah?” Robbie replied.

Wendell had a distant look in his eyes. “Like. They’re stuck in an endless cycle. The same tank, the same fish, day in and day out. That donut shop is my tank Robbie. I can’t seem to escape it.”

“Well, if you did, I wouldn’t have found you again.” Robbie said.

“I guess you’re right.” Wendell said. He looked Robbie in his eyes. “I wish I was more like you. You went to college! You defied your parents! You just randomly disappeared for two years! You aren’t like me. You’re not a lazy fish who swims around doing nothing.”

Robbie couldn’t find any words to respond to that. “I mean, who would want to spend their entire life in an enclosed space, wasting their life away! Being lazy, no goals, never striving to achieve anything. Only a sad excuse for a human would want to do that.” Wendell said. Robbie’s chest ached. “You’re the exact opposite of that. That’s what I love about you Robbie.”

This time Robbie had learned to run away. He ran, ran all the way back to LazyTown. He never wanted to see that aquarium, that donut shop, that town, or Wendell, ever again.

Did what happen between them ever count as dating though? He wasn’t sure. It was several years of mutual flirting followed by a single date and a kiss that ended with him running off without another word. That was seven years ago.

“Maybe four.” Robbie said again to Trixie.

“ _Maybe_ four?” Trixie replied.

Robbie tried to shift his mind back to nail painting. He remembered why dating wasn’t something he liked to think about much. “It was complicated.”

**Author's Note:**

> All the names of Robbie's past boyfriends were... mostly chosen at random. Feel free to send me more writing prompts over at my tumblr @MissMeanswell


End file.
